25 August, 2015

Armada gave me an epiphany and that's not always a good thing apparently.

Up to the moment I read this book, I'd started to convince myself that really the main thing that mattered to me in a book was readability. How much was a both looking forward to reading a book and how fast were the pages turning for me? Those are two things I thought a great deal of in terms of esteem (and star rating points).

Armada had all that. I did look forward to reading it and I thought the pages turned rather quickly all in all.

But I started to realize that even though I was enjoying myself, I didn't really think all that much of this story. It's rather bland for the most part and so chalk full of 80's nerdery it's almost as if no other nerdery is allowed or considered worthy.

Now, this 80's geekiness works really well in Cline's debut, Ready Player One (How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...), because it's essential to the story. Maybe we should add, because it was new, but I don't know if you can go that far. When the premise revolves around the 80s it just works.

Here, Armada's 80's affiliation has more to do with a kid's dead father's obsession and begins to grate in all the wrong ways. It's as if this geeky kid never realized there were other nerdy things to do ... even though he's obsessed with a very hyper-futuristic video game that all kids his age are obsessed with. It'd've been fine with additional, modern references - 80's references are fine - it's just that it begins to sound like that's the only worthy decade when that's far from the truth and arguably only the beginning of a very many great decades for geekery that only got better.

It's reinforced by the fact that only those other characters who also know 80's lore are considered with it, cool, on fleek (that's what the kids are saying these days right? *cough* *cough*).

To reiterate it's like the emphasis makes it seem like you're only cool (geeky) if you're up on your 80's geekery. If not, you're not actually a geek.

Now, I don't want to act like I didn't like Armada. I enjoyed it quite a bit and I admit that my expectations were nigh-on insurmountable after how much I fell for Ready Player One. I still enjoyed Armada, I just won't be fondly remembering my time with the book like I still do with RPO. It's a fun romp and I've forgone mention of the inconsistencies I saw (I think I gave it a hard enough time as is).

I'll still be scooping up Cline's next book, but probably not with as much fervor. Expectations have been tempered.

18 August, 2015

Some people will tell you that good dialogue is realistic.
Those people are barely half right on a good day. Good dialogue is a delicate
balance between what’s realistic, what’s dramatic, and what’s just plain
awesome.

So how does that work?

Balancing Realism and Drama

You need dialogue to seem realistic and to sound like we
imagine people talking. That means slang, abbreviations, incomplete sentences,
and touches of humor and awkwardness.

But that’s not the same as how people really talk. Any real
conversation involves a bunch of repetitions, hesitations, and “er, hm” moments
that just clutter up the scene. So throw in some realism, but don’t go too far.

Aaron Sorkin is famous for this. His dialogue seems realistic
because characters interrupt and talk over each other, like in real life. But
it’s hyper-reality, in which every word is cool, coherent and awesome.

Speaking of awesome, snappy one-liners and killer comebacks
will make your dialogue memorable and grab attention, so throw in a few. But
don’t use a whole bucketful — the more you have, the more obvious it will be
that this isn’t real people talking.

The same goes for drama. This lies largely in the structure, so
is easier to hide. Skip over the awkward fifteen minutes of developing a real
plan, and cut to the summary. Have people interrupt each other at the perfect
moment to add conflict and tension to the scene without hiding meaning. Have
people join in at the perfectly dramatic right (or wrong) moment.

Structure for drama and use details for realism and
awesomeness.

Voices: Being Consistent and Characterful

One of the most important things to do in good dialogue is to
make the characters distinctive. Give each one particular phrases or ways of
talking. These can be obvious, like Marvel comics’ robot bounty hunter Death’s
Head, who ends many sentences with “yes?” They can be more subtle, like having
a character use short sentences or ask a lot of questions. The character can be
favoring long words, or plainer sounding ones with an Anglo-Saxon root.

If each character has distinctive verbal tics then they’ll
stand out, making the dialogue clearer, more real and more dramatic. But be
careful not to overdo it. Even Death’s Head doesn’t use his distinctive “yes?”
as often on the page as readers remember, and only gets away with it because
he’s not a totally serious character. Over use any element and the character
will seem absurd.

Some Examples

It’s easier to show how this works through bad examples than
good ones. So let’s look at a few (that I’ve invented — no real authors were
hurt in the making of this article)…

“As
you know, Gilbert, Ragaton was once home to an ancient witch who…”

Any sentence that starts “as you know” is a stinker. Using this
to tell readers story background is neither dramatic nor realistic — only the
most tedious people tell us what we already know. If I want them to talk about
the witch, I’ll have to imply her existence:

“Is
that poster meant to show the Ragaton Witch? It looks almost as ancient and
wrinkled as she was.”

It’s not perfect, but it hints at the character’s snobby
attitude and deep familiarity with the witch, while implying her existence.

How about a little back and forth:

“Why
did you do it, Rusko?”

“I’m
not telling.”

“Tell
me or I’ll beat you.”

“Still
not telling.”

That’s one way to take the drama out of an interrogation, and
the realism - people don’t just answer questions directly, and the interrogator
is being too on the nose. So instead:

“Why
did you do it, Rusko?”

“Why
are you such a fat pig, Cole? You’re like one of them big sows, rolling around
in the—”

“You
want to meet my friend Mr. Lead Pipe?”

“You
want to go to Hell?”

Now Rusko’s fighting back with his words, “Mr. Lead Pipe” has
shown Cole’s twisted sense of humor, and they’re both being a little bit more
dramatic and characterful.

Good dialogue strikes that balance of
realism and drama, as well as showing character. It’s not just nice to have.
It’s vital.

____________________

A.G. Wyatt is the author of the post-apocalyptic adventure series, MoonFall, and is presently working on his second series. When he's not writing, he's reading, or looking for inspiration near his hometown in Northeastern PA.

04 August, 2015

I like to have fun with my reviews and I sure did with this one. Check out my review for Andy Weir's The Martian over at SFFAudio.com. Check out the trailer for the new movie, starring Matt Damon, here:

From my review:

Five stars for pure entertainment and because math made it suspenseful.

That’s right, math made it thrilling. Look at it this way, you’re stranded on a planet that’s essentially trying to kill you. You could just keel over and die … like I would most likely do in the same situation, or you could figure out how to stay alive.